Hillary On Her Marriage To Bill Clinton: ‘I Was Terrified About Losing My Identity’

WASHINGTON (CBSDC)– Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is speaking out, but this time it isn’t regarding policy or her 2016 competition.

In an interview for Lena Dunham’s new digital newsletter Lenny, Hillary divulges details on her marriage to Bill, as reported by People.

“Did you have anxiety about that?” Dunham asked. “About the concept of losing your own identity in the process of joining forces with someone who clearly had political ambitions?”

“I was terrified about losing my identity and getting lost in the kind of wake of Bill’s force-of-nature personality,” Clinton told Dunham. “I actually turned him down twice when he asked me to marry him. He asked, we were in England on a trip after law school graduation. He asked me to marry him. I said, ‘You know, I can’t say yes. No, I can’t do that right now.’ And then, about a year later he asked me again, and I said ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m not asking you again until you’re ready to say yes.’ And that was a large part of the ambivalence and the worry that I wouldn’t necessarily know who I was or what I could do if I got married to someone who was going to chart a path that he was incredibly clear about.”

Clinton says her ideas were much more unformed during her younger years.

“I wasn’t sure how to best harness my energies. And so I was searching. And when I taught at the law school, I set up a bigger legal aid clinic. I sent students to represent prisoners. I did a lot of poverty cases. I loved doing that. And I wasn’t quite sure how everything I cared about might fit into a marriage with him. And so eventually I said yes. It was a big leap of faith, and I think most marriages are. I mean, you really do just sort of say, ‘Okay, I think I know what it’s gonna be like, but I don’t know for sure. Let’s find out.'”

The former secretary of state recalled the early years of her marriage to Bill.

“It was great,” she says. “We were both teaching at that time. We got married in the living room of the house we had bought. And I was excited about it, but still, somewhat apprehensive. And then he did get elected to be attorney general about a year after we were married. And we moved from where we were living in Fayetteville, Arkansas to Little Rock, Arkansas. And I switched gears to practice law instead of teach law. So at every step along the way, I never could have predicted what I would have ended up doing.”

Looking back, Clinton says she couldn’t have anticipated the way her life would turn out at 20 or 21.

“I often tell young women who ask me about my life or my career: you just make the best decision you can at the time,” she told Dunham. “Don’t be reluctant to make decisions, and don’t rush into them. I mean, give them some thought. And then finally you say to yourself, ‘I think this is right for me. I’m going to, go ahead and do it.’ And you just do the best you can. And I have a piece of wood that there’s a slogan on in our house up in Westchester County, which says, ‘Bloom where you’re planted.’ And I’ve been in lots of different places where I’ve had to learn how to bloom. And it’s been an incredible experience.”

The entire interview will be made available to Lenny subscribers when the newsletter formally launches September 29.